[dmitri]

Its come to my attention that my foot work is a whole load of crap!     How can I improve this? Ne1 got any good tryin tips or excercises? Help seriously my foot work needs help!!

[Johnny Brown]

Power corrupts....

climb lots of slabs, and resist the temptation to pull your way up things.

[T.H.]

You need to be a bit more specific if you want some useful advice.  In what situations does your footwork let you down?  Your feet get used in a lot of different ways whilst climbing.

The best thing to do is try and work out when and why things are going wrong - when you come of a problem what's the weak link forcing you off?  Then you can be far more specific in correcting any errors.  You might find it's nothing to do with your feet and more to do with other factors - who knows.

The usual advice is helpful too - i.e. climb more, and watch closely what others (who aren't failing on the same things) do and learn from them.

[Brian C]

Spend lots of time at Font, or at least outside. Climb slowly and focus on pushing smoothly and powerfully on your feet

[T.H.]

Spend lots of time at Font, or at least outside. Climb slowly and focus on pushing smoothly and powerfully on your feet

That's fine, but what if you're doing something overhanging, or the only options are heel hooks?  Like I said, you use your feet in climbing for a lot more things than just standing on.

[Mr K]

Don't believe the hype - you don't get better foot work mucking about on slabs! The key to good footwork is good body tension, it's no good placing your feet on the right holds if you cannot maintain the link to the body. Most peoples feet pop off because they cannot maintain the force into the hold due to a poor abdominal or lower back deficiency...

If you want better foot work use small holds on a steep board, make sure you do problems smoothly and without letting your feet drop (no jumping or swinging) and this will help on slabs since your body tension will allow you to direct more 'power' through your feet...

T.H. and others are right that more experience teaches you how to spot a good foot sequence fast but without the strength you won't be able to use it! Slabs only teach you balance which is great but it won't help much on other angles...

JIMBO

[T.H.]

I couldn't agree more Mr. Kimber.